Would you have transitioned if you were a child today?

[isabeltydoria]

This question was asked on another forum, but I wanted to copy my answer here too and ask it here too (I hope that's okay?)

Would you have transitioned if you were a child today?

Just a yes or no would be interesting if you don't feel like commenting further; I'll put my (long!) reply into a comment.

I don't know really. I didn't mind bring a girl I just hard not being able to do things because I was a girl.

I wanted to do karate and football and rugby. I didn't want to wear pe knickers or do netball in stupid tiny skirts .

I wanted the toys my brother got bought I didn't an't the babies and my little ponies I got bought.

I certainly hated by body. And I hated what i wasnt allowed to wear out of principle over how I felt. I didn't want to be a boy but I wasn't allowed to he treated like the other girls were either.

I did wonder what was wrong in my head that I couldn't accept what my parents accepted so readily and what didn't bother any of the other girls. ( sports selections and school shoes and school trousers etc)

Really interesting OP @isabeltydoria - I never considered transitioning once and maybe that's why I don't have negative feelings around children that do.

I wonder how many women who aren't GC feminists would have transitioned as a child? I bet if this question was posted in Chat there wouldn't be many.

Do you think that being concerned about children transitioning who might have grown not to need to is "having negative feelings"?

Probably. It wasn't so much that I wanted to be a boy. I just didn't want the half life of being a girl.

As a child I wasn't treated as 'a girl' by my parents, just as a child who wanted to learn. I was taught how to cook by my mum and do DIY by my dad. I was never made to feel like I couldn't do something because of my sex. My mixed group of friends who I was always playing out with didn't differentiate between girls and boys and the game of the day was usually Cowboys and Indians, or riding round on our bikes. Sometimes it was Mummies and Daddies. I was called a tomboy by some and mistaken as a boy as I had short hair but I just shrugged that off.

Now with the commercialisation of childhood, things for girls and things for boys, I think my parents would have had a much harder time shielding me from the gender ideology and stereotyping prevalent in the late 1970s and early 80s. I am certainly struggling now with my own children.

Would I have transitioned? No, because I didn't see that I was handicapped due to my sex. That realisation has come much later.

I owe my parents much.

"I always knew I'd be a mother one day."

Interesting! Until I was 30 I loathed the thought, it disgusted me - then something switched (possibly biology, possibly a point in a long term relationship where I began feeling secure).

"maybe that's why I don't have negative feelings around children that do."

Yes, maybe if you haven't experienced it, you feel like anyone who comments is just being cruel and judgemental? And some probably are of course, there are genuine transphobic people out there - but I'm not being mean and I don't think others I've talked to online in GC groups are.

I wish I could do a PhD or extensive research into it all, get some really tangible data from different groups, and analyse the heck out of it.

(Or you know, magically vanish all gender norms, that would possibly fix a few things in society.)

I've got to go out now but will be back later. Thank you to everyone who's replied, I appreciate reading your replies.

@AssassinatedBeauty I think people who could have been gay but chose to extinguish that part of themselves and go on to have fulfilling lives, contented marriages and lovely children look back with relief at having not succumbed to their gayness.

Out and proud gay people think thank fuck I came out.

GC feminists look back with relief that their wasn't the option to transition when they were younger and they love being women.

Out and proud trans people think 'thank fuck I came out'.

And of course some people massively regret their gay experiences and some people de-transition.

My point is, people usually have strong feelings about something they can personally relate to.

I didn't want to be a mother in my twenties though! NO WAY!

Yes, Lurker I owe a lot to my mum who just took it all in her stride.

I’ve also noticed women who could possibly have transitioned in their youth are now the strongest opponents to the trans ideology.

Gosh, I never thought I would agree with Diam on anything! On this I do, most definitely. And that is because, as I said on another thread - letting kids be kids, without gender role expectations, is Feminism-101. And it is perhaps because we were in whole or in part, GNC, that really was the seeds of our feminism as well.

In answer to the OP, perhaps, maybe. I certainly hated the limiting parts of being raised as a girl. Also hated the double standards of obedience and politeness expected of us, and of course, the housework.

Probably, given sympathetic parents and doctors.

I thought I was trans until recently. I've always had stereotypically male interests and wearing dresses or make-up feels like wearing drag. I had bad menstrual issues for years and was convinced I didn't want children until I hit my late 20s so would have gladly chosen any treatment that would have fixed the issue regardless of the consequences on my fertility, but thankfully I had unsympathetic doctors.

I was starting to change pronouns and my title with banks etc when I read my first gender critical post on AIBU, and then hopped over to this board and was thoroughly educated. Most of my friends are LGBTQIA+ allies and activists who believe in gender identity and there are a lot of trans people in our circle, so until now I've been in a transgender-positive echo chamber.

I now feel intensely embarrassed that it took me so long to realise that my problem was gender stereotypes and that it's society which is broken and not me. I feel much happier and more secure in myself, and am very glad I stumbled across this forum and not a different one. Thank you, everyone.

I think unquestioning affirmation of transitioning is potentially harmful to gender non-conforming adults, let alone kids.

When I was young I loved having long hair but hated flowers, dresses, heels, jewellery, makeup... My interests were computer gaming and reading sci-fi, horror and detective novels. I often wished that I wasn't a girl but never thought I wanted to be a boy either.

The analogy with being gay seems to me an entirely spurious one.

A teen gets a crush on someone and decides on that basis that they are gay (or straight for that matter). Later on they realise they actually fancy individuals predominantly of the other sex to the one that teenage crush belonged to. They simply say "when I was a teen I thought I was gay/assumed I was straight, but as I've grown up I've increasingly realised I'm straight/gay." No issue, just a recognition that part of growing up is exploring and discovering who we are.

Contrast that with thinking aged 10 that you're trans - puberty blockers (loss of bone density) cross sex hormones (voice breaks, facial hair, loss of fertility), surgery - ALL IRREVERSIBLE.

FWIW I simply don't know. I was a tomboy, it was totally a reaction to being in a sexist society, but I also had sane parents who believed girls could do anything. I suspect I might have been the sort of teen who claimed to be non binary.

Exactly Fermats. Shows the utter nonsense of Daimbar's analogy.

No.
I was a tomboy. My dad made fun of me a couple of times for wanting to climb trees or learn how to play football (gently made fun, he was a good dad, not horrible, just a bit old fashioned sexist). But instead of trying to be more ‘girly’ to please him, it just made me cross.
Even at that age I didn’t see why I couldn’t be a girl and do whatever I wanted. I was a mini feminist.
It’s not surprising though. In the eighties most girls had shortish hair. Now, at the school where I teach, only a handful out of 200 girls do!
It’s much harder to be a girl nowadays.

I’ve also noticed women who could possibly have transitioned in their youth are now the strongest opponents to the trans ideology

Do you mean anecdotally amongst friends?

My interests as a child were almost entirely "male" for the time and I had zero interest in the approved "female" activities. I was routinely told that this was a problem with me, that I was wrong in some way.

However I also had a DF who encouraged me in those interests and who worked around the house rather than calling it woman's work. My DM was similar and the net result was I was sufficiently self assured at critical points to withstand the poison.

Without the support of a loving family I might well have accepted that I was fundamentally wrong. It worries me immensely that if I were a pre-teen or young teen now and being told I was non-conforming pretty much every message from supposed support groups tells me that simply asking the question means I must be trans rather than reassuring me that male interests is not the same as gender dysphoria.

It worries me immensely that young children are given untested medical treatments in a way which would be banned by ethics committees on any other subject. The lack of scientific rigour in this area will bite back.

So no, not remotely envy - more profoundly grateful that a generation ago we were more accepting of children with "opposite gender" interests and views than we are now.

@C8H10N4O2 this is me exactly...

Rather than just accepting everyone as they are.. these "support groups" are akin to Dr Google.. almost promoting worst case scenario's....

I was routinely labelled a 'tomboy' and hate it that this sexist expression still being used to describe feisty girls today. In my work I hear it often and it's not usually as a compliment either. And usually added on is 'well, she'll grow out of it'.

As a side point, I don’t understand why we’re being described as ‘gender critical’ feminists. Surely you can’t be a feminist without being critical of the idea of gender.
‘Gender’ is a prison that categorises us based on our sex. No feminist could buy into that surely?

I'm as certain as I can be that I would.
I didn't feel like a girl, because I didn't do stereotypically girly things.
I hated makeup, long hair, girls' toys etc.
I loved being called a tomboy as it was a nod to being a boy, and I even had a boys' name lined up to use.
Puberty was awful, I would have happily had my breasts removed, I had no inkling that I might want to use them at some point, and would have opted for puberty blockers had they been available.
It wasn't until my late teens/early twenties that I felt comfortable. I still didn't (and don't) feel like a woman, but I am and I'm ok with that now.
My teen years were miserable, had internet been a thing I would have been very open to online grooming and suggestion that I was, in fact, a boy.
I'm also autistic.

I think I would have done, having lived and dressed as a boy in my childhood. People just accepted it then without judgement or labelling me though. As a grown up I definitely do not want to be male. It would have been a huge mistake.

No I don't think so. My mother was a feminist of the Germaine Greer reading variety. I was never pushed towards femininity, I was allowed to be myself which happened to involve being an avid collector of My Little Pony, and also absolutely loving all things Transformers. My mother was very gender critical, she was aghast at the idea that anyone can 'feel like a woman', she used to say ''I'll tell them what a bloody woman feels like, she feels like a human being!''.

In the climate we are in now? Possibly. I wasn’t really raised as a girl, as such, despite the best attempts of some relatives. My father would not allow me to wear dresses or skirts until I went to school. He insisted I wore practical clothes that allowed me a freedom of movement.
I have for many years thought I should have been born a gay man. I’ve felt this way since my teens so at least 20 years. I’ve had gay male friends say the same thing to me.
I hate my female biology and the pain it causes me. I had an op for endro and ovarian cysts a few years back and begged them to take at least one ovary, which they would not. I was horrified at the thought of periods and still hate the process. The only plus for me is that I’m not pregnant, which is an bigger horror, to the point of phobia for me.
However, I know absolutely that my sex is what it is and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can remember being told this my by mother when I found out about periods and asking if I could just not have them. So I doubt my parents would have much truck with me transitioning, but I could easily have been sucked in to the idea by online and other real life encouragement.

I think I would have been terribly confused. I'm bisexual and relatively gender non conforming, but conventionally attractive in that I'm slim with big boobs! I had an early puberty and was utterly horrified - I idealised androgyny and wanted to look like Brett Anderson from Suede! I ended up with a pretty serious case of anorexia involving several hospitalisations and suicide attempts. I really felt like I was in the wrong body - a curvy feminine one when it should be all angles and flat chest. As an adult I now suspect, for a variety of reasons, that I'm probably on the spectrum but I think as a teenager I would have believed I was trans.

I’ve also noticed women who could possibly have transitioned in their youth are now the strongest opponents to the trans ideology.

Perhaps it’s a feeling of relief at having escaped something terrible mixed with a slight twinge of envy at what could have been.

No 'twinge of envy at what could have been' is necessary Daim - anyone here who regrets not having transitioned in their youth can do so now. Anybody up for it?

I would not have transitioned. I am, and have been since young, quite feminine / gender performing. And I am fucking furious about trans ideology.